Schumacher highlights difference between 'weird' Le Mans and F1

Mick Schumacher has highlighted the "weird" difference between the Le Mans 24 Hours and F1, ahead of his debut in the prestigious event.

The former F1 driver will make his Le Mans 24 Hours debut this weekend for Alpine, who he is competing for this year in WEC. 

As pointed out by Nyck de Vries in a RacingNews365 exclusive, racing in Le Mans is a "10-day marathon", due to all the testing and media duties which take place in the build-up to the iconic race. 

With Schumacher's entire career prior to 2024 having been spent in single seaters, moving to WEC has been a sizeable switch for the German; however, he cannot wait to get going this weekend at the legendary Circuit de la Sarthe. 

"Yeah, it is actually a bit of a weird concept, I feel in some ways," Schumacher told select media including RacingNews365. 

"Because you have this one-off event where everybody's just getting ready for it, and kind of the other races have been more of a warm up for it. 

"But I think it is a great race. It's my first time, so I'm experiencing everything for the very first time. And it really shows that people are here because they're passionate about racing. And that's obviously a very, very nice thing to see. 

"So I guess personally, I'm just very excited to be able to get into the race and see how that feels. 24 hours being on edge, for sure, the longest time I would have done that before. So yeah, looking forward to it."

'Not comparable'

Of course, there is a significant difference in the way he drives a Mercedes F1 car during a test as its reserve driver, and how he drives Alpine's WEC Hypercar. 

Clearly, the two categories are not similar, with Schumacher believing they cannot be compared. 

Despite this, he has no issues switching between the different machinery, a skill he has developed this year. 

"It's not comparable in the sense that it's two different championships, since it's that way, I also take it that way," added the former Haas driver. 

"So whenever I get back into a Formula 1 car to test, for example, I really am able to separate the two."